About Us

Welcome to CELENIUM

The people you need to get your goals faster!

 Architects & Engineers bringing you peace of mind, while you focus on core business operation and efficiencies!

Who We Are

 Solutions Architects & Engineers with expertise in in wireless communication network systems and their applications.

Where We Help

Telecommunication network systems infrastructure modernization and service transformation.

What We Do

We perform the due diligence to help you manage changes, reduce risks, save costs, navigate options, simplify solution, preserve the know-how, and monetize services for your business profitability.

Our Value

Technical Leadership that drives project teams to a successful conclusion, and guide management in making enlightened decisions. We help Shift  business decision risk from %50+ error to %90+ sound by providing the best cost-time-value solution.

CELENIUM

CELENIUM has been established as a result of the challenges experienced due to offshoring in our industry sector. The uncertainties in the workplace and layoffs, questioned the corporate business order we are living in. The premise behind CELENIUM is to create a business model that provides “Quality of Work-life” to attract and retain top local talents, as well as use our collective brainpower and resources to create social and economic growth in our own backyards.

Our story

In 1999, changes in business model towards outsourcing and offshoring technical work to low cost centers, grew exponentially. It impacted employees in corporate America, especially in high-tech sector. Many talented professionals at fortunate 500 companies has been sent to the layoff on weekly  basis, for years to come. As a result, technical staff morale took a steep decline as no positive outlook could be expected when middle management advice was to prepare resumes for opportunities elsewhere, in anticipation of the worst. A merger has been announced, in 2006, between the company I was working for and a European competitor. Many were concerned as the stakes of losing jobs have skyrocketed as the leadership promoted the need for “rationalization” of the workforce. US employees are the easy targets for workforce reduction. The “Quality of Work Life” has plummeted.

In the midst of this turbulent time, an idea popped up to surface. The premise of it that the talents layoffs from our employer could be  a birth of a new company. Wherein, a select group high-caliber professional can create an environment promoting stability, direction, and the Quality of Work Life they deserve, in return for their life the spend in building the business. This was the motive behind starting this venture. A company that can further use the brainpower of its people to invest in our neglected neighborhoods and create new jobs. Things did not work well at the time, in 2007, since all had their heads down to keep his or her seat at the desk.

With the economic downturn in 2009, talents from all disciplines were filling job clubs. The possibilities were unlimited, and the opportunity opened again for a second trial. After months of effort in pulling a new group together, things did not turn well. The man behind these initiatives, Ahmad Sultan, left this group to restart for the third time. On October 20, 2009, CELNIUM was incorporated in the State of Illinois.

The market situation was at its bottom, at that time. The company focus was under development to discover what can be done. The obvious was to offer consulting in the area of the founder expertise, Systems Architecture and Engineering in wireless communication, and its applications. The firs opportunity came through a friend introduction. With the help from another savvy solution architect, also a friend, we presented a device management interface based on standard protocol OMA-DM TR-69, to replace a proprietary protocol used for invisible fencing of devices. This would have opened business opportunities to the customer to sell his device to mega companies. However, the worked performed was not paid for, and the customer eventually vanished.

Almost a year after its inception, the first contract came through a third party, Apex Systems, to perform migration of Cricket Communications billing system to the 3GPP standard-based Policy and Charging Control (PCC). This project was the first corner in building CELENIUM reputation on excellence in engineering, faster time-to-value, and quality deliverables, as can be found in endorsements received on our founder’s LinkedIn profile.  A twelve months project, was completed in 10.

Communication Service Provider (CSP) supply chain structure makes it uneasy for a small business, like CELENIUM, to sell services direct. CSP go to Original Equipment Manufacture (OEM) of their network elements, or large/established staffing firms to supply the resources to help them build and operate their networks. The OEMs staff can not fill for all projects they have with their customers, so they go to staffing companies to source contractors for them. This Is how the first contracts CELENIUM had. In some cases, the staffing companies would not accept a B2B contract, rather W2 employment though them. Contract terms are not the ideal in every case. The important thing was to get the project, even if we are not direct or working as a corporation.

The success the founder had at Cricket repeated at Sprint, where our he was the point person in defining the technical specifications that drove Sprint 3G to 4G/LTE network service transformation, and aligning all vendors and Sprint teams to the design. The position was provided by a minority staffing business to Alcatel-Lucent that placed him on Sprint campus. Again, a twelve months project, was completed in 10. 

The quality of work delivered for Sprint in Virginia made our founder reputation fly ahead before his arrival to Kansas to take the next project for Sprint. This time, Ahmad was able to have B2B contract through the Select Group with Tekelec (later acquired by Oracle). Working there as Tekelec/Oracle Professional Service Architect, CELNIUM SME delivered the architecture and engineering of Sprint roaming DIAMETER signaling solution, lab and production configurations, proof of concepts, performance assessments, inter-operability testing, handling service requests, upgrades, and training to prepare handover to Sprint’s Operations team.

In 2016, after three and a half years with Sprint in Overland Park, KS, the next opportunity came through a staffing agency that did not want CELENIUM to engage in B2B arrangement, although their customer’s hiring manager indicated he was open to subcontracting.  Hired as a full-time employee at Call One in Chicago, Ahmad lead the frontend engineering for Fixed-Wireless, SD-WAN, and Hyper-Converged Infrastructure. The position was eliminated in 2018, promoting a new restart of CELENIUM. During these years, CELENIUM applied for and obtained, in 2017, the Small Business Administration (SBA) 8(a)  Certification as a Small Disadvantaged Business/Minority Business Enterprise (SDB/MBE).    

Ahmad joined a not-for-profit technology hub initiative in Naperville, Hub 88, with a mission to revive the technology corridor that depleted due to outsourcing and technology transfer to low cost center. The group worked out of Nokia building on Lucent Ln, Naperville. By default of being a Lucent member of technical staff, CELENIUM led the 5G-readiness test & verification lab for Hub 88. The service was to help innovators validate products on carrier-grade private 4G and 5G cellular network. Through exposure and networking, CELENIUM grow its list of suppliers and business partners to propose Smart Cities and Internet of Things applications to the City of Naperville. Apparently, nothing moved beyond the RFP/RFI stage.

In 2019, Ahmad rebranded and recreate CELENIUM website to combine both the infrastructure modernization and IoT applications, based on wireless communication technologies. Through SBA network opportunity, he met with Poonam Gupta-Krishnan from IYKA Enterprise, and both formed IYKA-CELENIUM Joint Venture, LLC. An SBA 8(a) JV company.  A one month contract came that year as a result of the good relationship Ahmad had with his manager in his previous employment. He assisted ISCO in finding, and qualifying suppliers that would provide an enhanced management interface to ISCO CPRI server. The work they expected in a month was completed in 28 hours. The work they expected in three months was completed in one. 

After a year of hardship, earning some supplemental income through “gig economy”, the year 2020 brought a contract in Nokia, though a staffing agency, to work on AT&T AEGIS project. Short-lived, however, due to COIVD-19 impact on world economy. Two opportunities came thereafter, again through staffing companies. One for Facebook and the other for a Tier 2 CSP. Ahmad was able to  establish a B2B Master Service Agreement with both staffing companies, and hired an engineer to work on the CSP project, while he worked on CALEA solution for Facebook MAGMA CWF, 4G and 5G. The CSP project did not last due to health issues with the hired engineer. During that time, working with IYKA-CELENIUM co-founder, they applied for General Service Administration (GSA) 8(a) STARS III contracting vehicle, which they on barded in 2022.

In 2021, received a call from his former Oracle manager to join the team working on 4G/5G Signaling Systems. Driven by the demand from CSP for Service Communication Proxy for 5G signaling simplification, on one side. In addition to the need for infrastructure modernization to virtualized solution to migrate from BareMetal deployments coming to their end-of-life. This has been a transformative opportunity as CELENIUM signed a Master Service Agreement with Oracle to provide engineering services in a myriad of projects that benefited Tier 1 and Tier 2 CSP in the USA and Canada. Wherein, he represented Oracle as Customer first point of contact for the end-to-end deployment solution architecture. Wherein, he provided technical leadership from the requirement though design, prototyping, testing, deployment, migration, and handover to operations.

As a result of this work, in 2024, CELENIUM refined its service offering to line up with the past performance in wireless communication infrastructure modernization and its application in service modernization.

Our process & quality matrix

OUM

OUM

CELENUM uses an three-step process adapted from Oracle Unified Method (OUM) and the Unified Process (UP) to ensure the  end results meet business objectives. 

The OUM process is 1) Business Process and Use Case-Driven, 2) Architecture-Centric, 3) Iterative and Incremental, 4) Risk-Focused, and 5) Fit-for-Purpose. OUM is composed of three focus areas:

01

Discover & Envision

  • Understand business long term vision in relation to present status
  • Capture high-level strategy of business objectives
  • Align on first in line project scope and approach
  • Obtain buy-in from project owner on time and budget

02

Analyze & Manage

  • Analyze the challenge and create the Work Breakdown Structure to solve it
  • Develop the Project Management Plan to document project controls including Scope, Schedule, Changes, Cost, Risks, Change, Communication, Quality, Issues,  Configuration, Procurement, Staffing, Infrastructure, etc.
  • Establish the Project Management Workbook to monitor and control the project
  • Manage the Project Startup, Execution, and Close phases

03

Implement & Deliver

  • Initiation: Define High-level specs & align team
  • Engineering: Develop detailed design, architecture, gaps and customization, prototype, test plans, bill of material
  • Construction: Procure, integrate, test & validate, MoP
  • Deployment: Cutover plan, field installation, acceptance test, knowledge transfer, final documentation
  • Production: Provide user support, monitor KPIs, report on SLAs, log requests, resolve issues

DRIVES

QUALITY COMMITMENT

CELENIUM DRIVES process results in delivering high-quality project artifacts. It is comparable to ISO 20000 quality feedback loop Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA)

  1. Develop Initial project artifact
  2. Review with stakeholders for errors and comments
  3. Incorporate corrections and reissue
  4. Verify fixes. Repeat steps 2-4, if needed
  5. Enhance presentation
  6. Sign off approval and baseline

Why choose us?

Faster Time-to-Value: save ~15% in frontend engineering with 95+% accuracy

Solid reputation of Excellence, Leadership, Perfection & Quality

Solid experience in solving mission-critical, high visibility complex problems

Solid foundation for future growth through detailed quality documentation

Go-getters attitude and iron resolve

Diversity Strength: Access to top talents pool and Teaming Partners’ resources

Endorsments

The following endorsements are testimonials to the engineering work performed by CELNIUM Founder.

“Ahmad has always proactively initiated, led, and coordinated both his efforts and the efforts of others to deliver on-time, high-quality front-end results that exceeded commitments for Lucent. His work leading the Lucent Performance Cross-Functional Team (CFT) and all associated activities were highly acknowledged by his peers and by management across multiple departments."
Jerry RogTechnical Commodity Manager at Alcatel-Lucent
"I had the pleasure of managing Ahmad while he was a contracting consulting for Sprint in 2012. Specifically, he directly supported our Diameter Routing Agent development and LTE Core Development programs. Ahmad is extremely professional, detail-oriented, and has a very positive reputation both within and outside of Sprint. I very much recommend him for potential opportunities he may be considering."
Terry Nebergal
Terry NebergalManager, Sprint
“His work on the front end development was key to that aspect of the overall success of the eCSFB program. This program changed the way voice calls are signaled to the CDMA phones, via the LTE radio channel.”
Phil Kopp
Phil KoppDIRECTOR, SPRINT
"I had an opportunity to work very closely with Ahmad when he was working as LTE Core Network Development Consultant at Sprint. His in-depth knowledge of LTE architecture was astonishing and motivating for me. He put immense efforts in the development of eCSFB technical documentation for Sprint which was the main reference point for us to finish the Sprint eCSFB project successfully.
Priyadarshini Gore
Priyadarshini GoreLTE SME, Nokia
“He was the key player in many multivendor discussions where he was shaping the technical requirements, guiding the vendors while referring to the 3GPP specifications that he knows very well. He eventually wrote a standard grade technical specifications document that was used by different organizations within Sprint and its vendors as the CSFB reference.”
Sameh Naguib
Sameh NaguibTEAM LEAD - ALCATEL-LUCENT
Ahmad worked for me in a systems engineering and performance analysis capacity while at Alcatel-Lucent. He was an integral part in setting standards for our performance and in ensuring we met the performance characteristics specified. He was very detail oriented, documented his work carefully, thoroughly, and in a very understandable fashion. He was easy to work with, and people sought him out for his expertise. He would be a welcome addition to any system solutions team!”
Jim Hoch
Jim HochDirector, Wireless Platform Development at Lucent Technologies
“I worked with Ahmad for 2 years. He is a customer-focused and detail-oriented engineer. He possesses strong skills in designing and integration testing of wireless core; he works very hard to deliver a quality product on-time.”
Akbar Aman
Akbar AmanNetwork Design Engineer at Sprint
“Ahmad worked for me for about a year and assisted in the deployment of our PCRF platform. His unparalleled attention to detail and willingness to do any task were instrumental in the success of the project.”
Chris Burke
Chris BurkeMANAGER, CRICKET COMMUNICATIONS
“I have had the pleasure of working with Ahmad for the last few years. He is a talented and thorough engineer who can make the most complicated concepts appear simple. Ahmad embraces collaboration and team success and makes doing business a productive and pleasurable experience.”
Tom Kolletis
Tom KolletisProduct Manager at Call One
“He has a rare combination of advanced education (PhD) and an ability to communicate with people at all levels. His engineering talents in electrical (as opposed to electronic) engineering and LabVIEW software development were very strong. I would work with him again if the situation presented itself.”
Steven Vetter
Steven VetterCEO Computer Solutions, Inc.
"Ahmad was solicited for several Technical, Front-end processes, and cross departments improvement projects during his time at Lucent. He was a very strong team player with leadership roles on multiple CFTs. Ahmad always delivered features requirements on schedule with high quality."
Jerry RogTechnical Commodity Manager at Alcatel-Lucent
"Ahmed was a solid technical contributor to the Performance Architecture team. He provided a direct and in-depth technical analysis of processor performance for new architectures were evaluating for new product introduction. Ahmed is self-driven and very complete in his analysis."
Kevin Menke
Kevin MenkeManager, Nokia
"Ahmad is a true asset for training on the Sprint DRAs and creating the MOPs. He is accessible for all our questions and eager to assist. Every step in the MoP was easy to follow. The layout was done in a perfect way to clearly understand the difference of each type of implementation. I printed out the diagrams and tables as they are excellent references."
Tamra Pinson
Tamra PinsonNetwork Engineer, Sprint
"Ahmed was a technical lead for our electrical group working on a large multi-year project. Ahmed is very detail-oriented, focused, professional."
Michael Laub
Michael LaubSenior Electrical Engineer, CB&!
"During the global climate change awareness-raising and action campaign, Ahmad Sultan has been of tremendous help in conducting a workshop in the greater Chicago area. His passion to support environmental protection especially among youth made him a credible partner."
Ansgar Kiene
Ansgar KieneDirector, World Future Council
"Ahmad’s dedication to detail and accuracy greatly minimized development confusion. He was frequently sought after by his peers to moderate technical meetings. Ahmad was also always willing to expand his work efforts to fill critical functionality not presently staffed.”
Jerry RogTechnical Commodity Manager at Alcatel-Lucent
"Along with his excellent technical skills and management skills, he kept great camaraderie with all the Sprint vendors and has helped many Engineers in the Organisation to get a deeper understanding of LTE Network Elements with his outstanding grip over 3GPP specifications. With his enormous knowledge and long experience, I truly recommend Ahmed for a senior role in Telecom Industry."
Priyadarshini Gore
Priyadarshini GoreLTE SME, Nokia
Ahmad's attention to detail and subject matter expertise were clearly evident in his work supporting the open source Magma project at Facebook (now Meta). Ahmad was tasked with navigating the world of CALEA for the project. He delivered the end-to-end solution architecture and engineering requirements to drive Magma 4G and 5G Lawful Intercept -- as well as Data Retention for Carrier WiFi use cases. This greatly reduced the schedule risk and made it easy for the software engineers tasked with implementation. Ahmad also handled supplier diversification with leading CALEA providers, and we achieved Interop certification agreement before the targeted dates. This all aided in Facebook's goal of expanding adoption of Magma as an open-source core network platform capable of reducing network TCO and bringing more people online to a faster and better Internet.
Brian Barritt
Brian BarrittFounder & CTO at Aalyria
I had the pleasure to work closely with Ahmad to design and deliver some features for Magma project. Ahmad brings excellent solution design skills and a deep knowledge of 4G/5G mobile networks. Aside the technical skills, he's a great team player and a great professional. He continuously leveraged his strong relationships and technical skills to unblock the roadblocks and allow smooth project delivery.
Youssef M.
Youssef M.Co-Founder at Prophesy | Ex-Meta SWE
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